To Love and Say Goodbye
by AllAboutTheDRAMA
Summary: "Been saying I'm with you til the end of the line since we were kids. Guess it's about time I prove it." Or, James and Steve are Jamie and Stephanie. Everything and nothing changes. Stucky, Rule 63


There's a certain shame that comes along with it. Sure, there's the disappointment, she always knew there would be disappointment, and there's very little surprise, but the shame is unexpected. The shame burns down her throat and in her stomach and, to her absolute horror, in her eyes.

Stephanie Grace Rogers has just been rejected from the United States Nursing Corp, and she is ashamed.

Stephanie Grace Rogers is an asthmatic with a faulty heart, a bent spine and the inability to lift anything heavier than ten pounds, and she wants more than anything to serve her country on the front lines as a nurse, and she is ashamed.

She is more ashamed when, ten days later, she makes up a fake name (Alice Hennesey, age 25, trained in California, that is why there's no record of it, but perfectly qualified, I _swear_ ) and ducks into another recruitment station. And still more when they give her the same failing mark.

But the final shame, the one that leaves her curled to her side on her too-thin mattress, her chest heaving, for once heavy not with illness, is when she sees Bucky cutting an impressive figure in her olive uniform, back from training for her last night at home before shipping out.

"Second Lieutenant Jamie Barnes, _attache_ to the 107th, shipping out for England tomorrow morning."

 **…**

Stephanie is twelve years old and about to get the holy heck beat out of her when she meets Bucky. She's gotten herself into this scrape by hollering at two boys who were picking on a third (who, alright, was a boy and, okay, probably was a little bigger than Stephanie, but he only looked like he was maybe ten years old, and the other two looked fourteen and _that's just not fair_ ) but instead of looking ashamed and skulking off, the way most boys do when she yells at them for fighting, these two are advancing on her, close enough that she can smell the liquor on their breath, and she's trembling ( _Ma always said that big mouth would get me into trouble_ ) when a voice cuts across them, calm and confident, as if they're all old friends:

"What do you boys think you're doing?"

The two boys turn around, and through them, Stephanie can see the young woman poised at the opening of the alleyway, looking like she just stepped off the pages of one of those magazines from France (Not that Stephanie's ever seen one up close, Ma never wanted her wasting money on those). The girl's dress is faded but pretty, her hair's smooth and glossy, and even though her face is serious, her eyes look like it wouldn't take too much for her to laugh.

The boys duck their heads and mumble 'Sorry, ma'am' and scuttle off, and Stephanie's waiting for the girl to move on so she can get out of there without the girl seeing how bad she's shaking, but instead off walking off, the girl walks down the alley and asks, concerned, "Did they hurt you?"

Stephanie shakes her head, and the girl smiles, and suddenly Stephanie's always known she wasn't much of a looker but she's suddenly acutely aware of the fact that her dress is too big on her and a few years out of date and her hair's frizzing, and this girl must just be laughing at how silly she looks, backed into a corner by two boys like she could actually fight them, when the girl says, "That was very brave." Stephanie blinks a few times, as the girl continues, "I mean, stupid as hell, but still. Brave."

And then the girl is moving forward and taking her hand, pulling her to her feet and saying, "My name's Jamie Barnes, but everyone calls me Bucky."

Instead of offering her own name, Stephanie asks, "Why?" before realizing she must sound so rude, as if she's criticizing the girl, this Bucky, but instead of getting offended, the girl just smiles and answers.

"Cause my middle name's Buchanan," Bucky explains. "And that God-awful choice came about cause my Daddy's father says we're related to the man himself, James Buchanan."

"I'm Stephanie," she adds into the silence, and just like that, Bucky's slung an arm around her shoulder and she's walking her down the alleyway, back towards the street.

"Come on Stephanie, I'll walk you home."

 **…**

The saying is 'third time's the charm,' but in Stephanie's case, it's the sixth. She's ducked away from Bucky and their 'dates' at the World's Exposition a while ago (and God knows she uses the word 'date' lightly, she saw the way his eyes skimmed over her. Ten years of being friends with Bucky may have taught her how to fix her hair and the best way to alter her dresses so they fit better, but even the great Jamie Buchanan Barnes could not do anything about the way the scoliosis bent her back, her need for glasses that were nearly an inch thick, or the fact that at twenty two she still had the figure of a prepubescent boy. This was hardly the sort of girl anyone would picture when they heard Bucky, with her movie star good looks, offer to set a guy up with her friend) and although Bucky has frowned and warned her one day she'd get caught if she kept up with the lies, ("Or worse, they'll actually take you"), she still isn't expecting the man, Erskine, to lay down a file with all of her rejected applications.

"Maybe that's the wrong file-" she tries to cover, but instead of admonishing her or calling for MPs to come take her away, the man fixes her with a hard gaze and asks her a question:

"Why do you want to be a nurse? Do you want to see Nazis die?"

"I want to see our boys live," comes out, before she can stop and think about what she's saying. "I don't want to see anyone die, Dr. Erskine, but I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from."

Her answer must the right one, because he nods and offers her a job working as a nurse on a Project: Rebirth, something with the SSR, something he says can change the tide of the war in favor of the Allies, forever. Erskine shakes her hand and gives her back her forms with an address and a time on them. The 1A, "cleared for duty" stamp is all she can see when she closes her eyes, but for the rest of the night her head echoes with Bucky's last words to her.

 _"_ _Don't do anything stupid until I get back."_

 _"_ _How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."_

 _"_ _You're a punk."_

 _"_ _Jerk. Be careful."_

 _"_ _I will."_

 _"_ _Hey! Don't win the war till I get there!"_

 **…**

Stephanie Grace Rogers is fifteen years old when she realizes she's in love with her best friend.

At this point, they've known each other for four years, and already are inseparable. Lord only knows how Bucky puts up with her.

"You're a mean little thing, Stephanie Grace, you know that?" Bucky asks, leaning in beside her to look in the mirror. Bucky's gotten them an invitation to a dance with a couple boys who work on the docks, and she's insistent that Stephanie let her fix up her hair and put some make up on.

Stephanie's ma never had much patience for the stuff; she said it was too expensive and no one really had the time for it and red lipstick made a girl look like tarted up. But Stephanie would have to disagree. For one thing, Bucky almost always wore red lipstick, when she could afford it, and Bucky was just the cat's pajamas.

Not just because of the red lipstick, although, as Stephanie eyes her friend's face in the mirror, she must admit that that is part of the appeal. There's so much more about her than just her pretty face- Movie star looks. That's what people always said about her. That she ought to go out to Hollywood and never look back. But it wasn't just that. There was the side the whole world got to see, with her big grins and her bigger heart, her quick jokes, and quicker wit, but there were also the parts of her that were all steel and stone, like the look she fixed on Mr. Conrad, the teacher who had said that girls were just naturally worse at science than boys, or the way she held herself when she had a black eye or a bloody nose, just daring anyone to make a comment about it.

And then there were the parts of her only Stephanie and a few choice others were allowed to see, like the way she'd push her sisters and Ma behind her when her father was drunk, taking the brunt of his rage. Or the way she'd burrow down in her blankets when a storm rolled in, pulling the covers over her head as if they'd protect her. Or the way she'd fuss over Stephanie whenever she was sick, bringing her hot soup and cold glasses of water, reading aloud to her and fussing around the sickbed "Like she was your own sister," her ma would tell her (Mrs. Rogers may not approve of red lipstick in general, but she definitely approved of Bucky Barnes in particular).

That, Stephanie decides, is what she doesn't like about the dances, and she tells Bucky so.

"You don't act like you when you're around those boys."

Bucky smiles at her as she takes the pins out of her hair, letting her curls fall. "Course I don't, I want them to like me, don't I?"

Stephanie makes a face, and says, "You act like you around me, and I like you plenty."

Bucky laughs, tells her it's not the same, and stands behind her to start fussing with Stephanie's hair, now that she's done with her own, spritzing a little perfume over both of them so they smell like lavender and vanilla. And that's when Stephanie realizes. It's not the same. It's not the same because all those boys want is to get up Bucky's skirt, and what Stephanie wants is…

What Stephanie wants is the sort of thing Jane Austen wrote about, the sort thing that inspired Shakespeare. She wants Bucky to look at her the way she always does, the way that says 'you're just fine', and to give her a crooked grin. She wants to find out what Bucky's skin tastes like, and what it feels like to fall asleep in her arms. She wants so deeply her heart aches, its poor, stunted rhythm barely able to keep up. She wants-

She cannot want. This… This is impossible. This is _wrong_. This is the sort of thing ladies get sent to asylums for, for correction. She's not supposed to look at that red lipstick and imagine getting it stained on her teeth.

So she begs off, tells Bucky she's coming down with a cold and she has to go home. But that doesn't work either, because of course Bucky is Bucky and tells Stephanie she'll sit up with her, read to her, make sure she's alright since her Ma's working the late shift. Stephanie lets her sling her arm around her shoulder and walk her home before she reminds her that the boys (Barney? Brody?) will still be waiting for her. Bucky's about to protest again, but Stephanie fixes her with the meanest look she can muster and tells Bucky that she doesn't want any company. It's a lie, but it's been true enough times in the past (Lord, but does she get ornery when she's coming down with something) that Bucky nods sadly, scraping the toe of her shoe against the concrete (Her ma was always yelling at her for that, scuffing up perfectly good loafers), and gives her a tight hug, promising to come by tomorrow.

Stephanie gets inside, gets to her bed, and sits down with a hard thump. It might be, she thinks wryly, the first time she ever wished the reason her chest was tight was because she was ill.

 **…**

Stephanie spends three weeks at the training facility for the SSR. What she finds is not all that impressive.

Sure, the men there are physically fit, their performance at the obstacle courses and on marches was always well above the average standard, and they followed orders to a T. But there was something… Lacking.

When their sergeant offered them a ride on the jeep if they managed to get the flag down, they all jumped and tried to climb the post, but not one of them even thought to look at the bolts at the base. When Col. Phillips threw a dummy grenade into the crowd, they all ducked and scattered. They were loud and mean and the big ones picked on the little ones.

No, the most impressive thing Stephanie has found, she decides, is Agent Carter.

Agent Carter was introduced to her on the first day she arrived, a tall man (at least, taller than Stephanie) with a crisp uniform and a sharp accent. Sharp is a good word for him, Stephanie decides. He's very to-the-point, very efficient. And when one of the men makes a nasty comment about the British, Stephanie learns that Agent Carter has a very mean right hook.

He's always there, watching the training and silently appraising the men, sitting in on briefings as Stephanie learns about the men who plan to tear the world apart, about the Nazi's weapons division, HYDRA, and its ruthless leader, Johann Schmidt, and having covert conversations with Dr. Erskine and Col. Philips that even Stephanie isn't privy to.

Agent Carter doesn't much talk to Stephanie, although sometimes when she turns, it seems as if the man was just looking at her. But Stephanie is, after all, just an assistant to the head of the project. She is no one of consequence. Still, aiding a doctor at a top secret facility is better than trying to find work at home for a nurse who couldn't even hold up one end of a gurney.

But when the three weeks are almost up, Agent Carter calls on her in her quarters.

 **…**

They are supposed to attend their nursing program right out of high school. Of course, things rarely go as they plan them.

Stephanie gets hit with walking pneumonia in the middle of the summer (just her luck), and while Bucky says that she's sticking around at home to save up some money for school, Stephanie knows the truth. Jobs are almost impossible to come by, and Bucky works day to day, sometimes coming home at the end with nothing but lint in her pockets. And as soon as she does she relieves Stephanie's ma or her own, whichever one of the women had been sitting up with her to make sure her lungs don't just give out under the pressure, and she flops into the chair beside Stephanie's bed and begins telling her about her day.

Her voice is soft and soothing, her hand always cool on Stephanie's burning forehead, and she never seems to tire of bringing Stephanie just one more hot water bottle, or reminding her to take her medication. Her voice never gets cross the way her Ma's does at the end of ten or twelve hours of listening to her chest rattle.

Stephanie knows her ma only snaps when she's very afraid, so she prefers Bucky's always-cheery voice most of the time, especially since her Ma's been snapping a lot lately.

There is a time, that summer, when things are bad. Even under all her blankets and with the stifling August air, Stephanie is shivering. Her ma has sent for the doctor, and the priest is already there. He begins the Last Rites, first whispering the words of Penance, than the Anointing of the Sick, and finally administers the Viaticum.

"…The Body of our Lord, Jesus Christ, which has been given up for thee…"

That's when Bucky bursts in. The priest, Father Arnold, looks up in shock as the door slams against the wall, but Bucky ignores him, clambering onto the bed next to Stephanie and scooting around so that she's pressed to Stephanie's back, her arms propping her up. "Go on," she tells him, into the silence. "I'm not stopping you."

This isn't the first time Bucky's held her like this, when she's so sick she can't sit up on her own and it helps her breath better to have someone wrapped around her, supporting her, but instead of propping her up, this time Bucky lays like she's hoping Stephanie will drag her down with her.

So Father Arnold clears his throat and continues with the prayer, but he can't stay because there are others, there are always others who need him too. And the doctor is still not there yet, and her ma is weeping and whispering that it's okay, she doesn't have to hold on anymore, it's alright if she's ready to rest, and there is something damp on the back of her neck and she realizes, distantly, as she drifts from consciousness, that Bucky's crying.

She wakes up the next morning to see her ma asleep in her chair, and a vice-like grip around her waist. When she finally finds the strength to squirm to her side, she sees Bucky, staring at her with large, damp blue eyes.

"Wha-" She's interrupted by a coughing fit, and Bucky tucks her chin over Stephanie's head so that she doesn't end up spewing phlegm in her friend's face.

"Your fever broke in the night," Bucky whispers. "I don't want to wake your Ma," she adds, as Stephanie notes that she's covered in sweat, "But I'll get you some water."

She makes a move as if she's going to climb over Stephanie, out of the bed, but Stephanie stops her. "Wait," she says, and her voice is hoarse, just speaking one word makes it hurt. "Please don't…"

"I'll stay, if you want," Bucky offers. Stephanie nods, and tucks herself into her friend's embrace that smells of vanilla and lavender, allowing Bucky to smooth her sweaty hair back over her forehead, to keep her in her strong arms and whisper that it's alright, she's well and everything's alright now. Because Bucky's with her. "Til the end of the line, Steph."

So it means another year of living at home, when both their families had expected that they'd be gone by now, off to the school where their government subsidized education would mean a mouth less apiece for each family, because Stephanie needs to get her strength back and Bucky won't leave without her. It means another year of Bucky working all the odd jobs she can get, and when winter comes and Stephanie gets her colds, well… She'd be lying if she says that Bucky spending her evenings in with her instead of out with a different boy each night isn't a nice change.

Stephanie Grace Rogers is selfless when it comes to many things, but when it comes to sharing Jamie Buchanan Barnes with the rest of the world, she never has been.

 **…**

"Hello," Agent Carter stands in her doorway, his smile soft, not at all like the sharp, needley-mouthed grin he gives the recruits to remind them that he can and does outperform them at every test they are assigned. "I was told I could find you here."

Stephanie tries to straighten her crooked spine and stand a little taller. "What can I do for you?" She asks.

"Well," Agent Carter says, holding up a bottle of schnapps by its neck, "I was hoping you could help me with this." Stephanie's confusion must show on her face, because Agent Carter adds, "They've selected a candidate, and tonight is our last night here. I was hoping we could celebrate. I know it's not a dance hall, but…"

"No, this is fine." Stephanie ushers him into the room. "I'm not much for dancing, anyways."

"Oh?" Agent Carter raises an eyebrow.

"Not my cup of tea," Stephanie clarifies, finding him a chair.

"Maybe you just haven't found the right partner," Agent Carter suggests.

Stephanie's mind flashes back on a mop of dark curls and flashing blue eyes. No, that's not the trouble at all, but it's not as if she can tell Agent Carter that.

"I know we haven't spoken all that much," Agent Carter continues, "But I was hoping we could become better acquainted."

"That would be nice," Stephanie agrees, as Agent Carter pours them each a glass of liquor. "So, they found a candidate?"

Agent Carter tells her the name, and Stephanie conjures up the image… One of the big ones, with a thick face and a penchant for stomping on the fingers of the other men if they managed to catch up with him on the rope ladders on the obstacle course. Hodge.

"Agent Carter, you can't actually think that he's-"

"Please," the man interrupts. "Call me Paul. And I don't think Hodge is a good candidate at all, but Phillips suggested him and Erskine agreed. That's why I decided I needed a drink tonight."

Stephanie remembers that Hodge was one of the first ones to make comments about Paul. She studies his face and wonders, for a moment, what he thinks about being so far from home.

"I don't see why Erskine would pick him. He's been against him the entire process."

"He said he has his reasons." At that, she fetches two glasses, and Paul begins pouring.

It's Stephanie's first time getting drunk; although Bucky's taken her to plenty of halls where she could have, she's never had it in her to make some poor schmuck who had gotten roped into double dating with them pay for more than one drink when he was most likely expecting a blonder Bucky to have on his arm, and on the nights when they did go solo she preferred to stand to the side and nurse one or two glasses, watching with mounting jealousy as boy after boy swung Bucky around the dance floor.

But by the end of the night, she is well and truly schnockered, and by the end of the night, she's received her first ever kiss.

She distantly thinks, _'Paul would look nice with red lipstick.'_

 **…**

It's not until her ma dies that she really loses it. There's four more months before they're supposed to leave for nursing school, and it's too much. The funeral blurs, she just remembers Father Arnold's slow, low voice from every Sunday she's ever spent in Church, out of place on a Tuesday.

Bucky is at the funeral, the service, at least, but had come in the day before with a stormy look on her face, and when Stephanie had asked her about it, Bucky frowned and told her that she couldn't get the whole day off of work.

Stephanie had nodded and told her it was alright. After all, Bucky'd already taken nearly a week off of work so she could be at the hospital with her; and that was the more important part. Or so she thinks, until she is the only mourner standing in the cemetery, watching the box that holds the body that used to be her ma get lowered into the ground. Stephanie stares down at her dress as they pile on the dirt, and wishes she was wearing something darker, but she can't afford a new dress, so the navy has to suffice. Father Arnold tries to speak to her, after, but the tears are coming so quickly that she staggers away down the street and tries to ignore the people staring at her like she's crazy.

She's not sure how long it takes for Bucky to find her, but she does. Of course she does.

"I want to be alone." The words ring hollow, so Bucky keeps following her.

"How was it?"

"It was okay," she mumbles, as Bucky guides her towards a bench. "She's next to Dad."

"I was going to ask… I mean, I know what you're going to say, but we can put the couch cushions on the floor, like when we were kids… It'll be fine, all you have to do is just… Shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash…" Stephanie's breath is caught in her throat. "Come on." She feels Bucky press a key into her hand.

"Thank you, Buck. But I can get by on my own."

They're not facing each other; they're both staring out into the street, Bucky still holding her hand.

"I know you can. But the thing is… You don't have to." Bucky scoots over, wrapping her arm around Stephanie's waist. Stephanie leans against Bucky's shoulder, and they sit like that for a minute. "I'm with you, Stevie. Til the end of the line."

And despite everything, it's nice. It's nice to sit under the sun with Bucky beside her.

Living with the Barnes's is fine. Bucky's sisters are so used to sharing everything that they take her clothes and don't even notice except to comment on the tight fit, and Mrs. Barnes makes sure she eats as much as they can afford to feed her. Mr. Barnes doesn't come home till late most nights. When he does come in for dinner he sometimes gives her a look that makes her wish she had her old apartment still, but those evenings are often far and few between.

She's been so angry for so long. For being so small and so sick. For having a Dad who didn't come back from the war when everyone else's did. For being ugly and stunted and twisted. For not being able to look at boys the way she is supposed to. For looking at Bucky instead.

One time, when she's half in the bottle, Bucky tells her that she thinks the reason Stephanie feels so much is because she has regular sized emotions and a tiny little body, and the emotions just don't fit the way everyone else's do.

Stephanie thinks Bucky might be on to something, there.

Bucky wipes down tables and carries drinks at a bar not too far from the houses, and that October she tells Stephanie that there's a room over it for rent, if they want to stop being such lousy freeloaders (Bucky generously includes herself in that description, although they both know that the only one freeloading between them is Stephanie) and give her parents a little space, they could move in.

So Bucky's got her regular job and Stephanie goes out to collect scrap metal when she's strong enough and between the two of them they turn the house into a home, and something loosens in Stephanie's chest. Money's tight, it always is, but they've got a roof and whatever leftovers they can scrounge up from the bar, and at night they can sit out on the fire escape and look out at the city. Bucky gets unusually quiet and contemplative up there, and Stephanie sketches the bridge, the skyline, and the curve of Bucky's smile.

 **…**

Hodge is strapped into a big, metal contraption, and Stephanie stands in the gallery while Paul and Dr. Erskine talk to a man with slicked back hair and a neat mustache that Stephanie vaguely recognizes, but it's not until she hears the name 'Stark' that she really remembers the man from the exhibition.

So he's not just another pretty-faced front man.

She knows Erskine is frustrated with her, all day she's been driven to the point of distraction every time Paul so much as glances at her, never mind smiles. Now that she's sober, now that she's in her right mind, she can't believe what happened the night before.

She'd always thought- Always _hoped_ \- That would be all it would take. She'd meet a man who liked her, he'd kiss her and then-

And then what? She'd forget Bucky?

Never.

No, Stephanie contemplates, staring blankly ahead as Stark and Paul start talking in low voices and the rest of the lab assistants scurry around, she would rather live the rest of her life with the agony of knowing Bucky would never, _could_ never feel the same, than live one day not remembering what loving her felt like.

She snaps back to the moment as the power surges, as Hodge screams and Col. Phillips leans forward in anticipation, only to see the light settle and… Nothing.

Hodge falls out looking a little paler and sweatier than usual, but not much else is different, and Phillips runs forward, then yells at Erskine, who answers calmly, "I told you it would not work. You did not believe me. Now you see what I was trying to tell you."

Stark is rolling his eyes, Paul's mouth is hanging open in shock, and the rest of the men who gathered to see Erskine's miracle are grumbling and filing out, disappointed. And Stephanie realizes that she was the only one who didn't know, the only one not in on the game, the only one who thought their work was important. Who thought she was doing something that mattered.

Unsure of what to do, she waits in the gallery while Paul and Stark go down to the main floor, joining Erskine and Phillips. It's just the five of them left. Even Hodge manages to gather himself enough to walk out.

As the four men talk, she slowly begins to gather Erskine's papers and his bag, her fingers numb as she stacks them back in the proper order, until she approaches Erskine to hand it to him. Erskine stops and looks back at her for a moment, holding her gaze, before he says, "Miss Rogers, you seem upset."

Stephanie sucks in a deep breath, forcing her lungs to hold steady, before she tells Erskine, "I thought… I suppose I misunderstood."

Phillips is looking at her through narrowed eyes, and Stark is glancing between her and Erskine, but it's Paul who worries her, Paul who rakes his hand through his hair and mumbles something under his breath, looking at her with a touching concern that makes her almost scared of what Erskine is going to say.

"When I first created my serum," he tells her, "All tests showed that it was something that would change the face of humanity… But no man could bear the strain it would put on his body. So I altered it, tried to change it so that it would be more endurable, but that was a… Miscalculation. What I created is what Schmidt used," and he pauses here, for her to ask questions, but she knows the name, she's sat in on enough briefings to follow this, "and it was… Successful in a way, but never something I could willingly administer. So I changed it again, and it took its final form in what you have seen here, today. Entirely useless."

"Then what was the point?" she asks. "If you've known this all along, if all of you have known this, what was the point?"

"Ms. Rogers, the original serum would create a super soldier," Erskine repeats, "But it is something no _man_ could bear."

Stephanie's never had the easiest time controlling her breath, but the looks the four men affix her with really just knocks it out of her chest.

 **…**

All she's ever wanted to do, Stephanie reflects, sitting up on that apartment fire escape, even though it's freezing outside and she knows that catching her death of cold is a much harsher reality for her than for most, is to be useful. But it's quite clear that she wasn't built that way.

She wasn't built to survive long winters on little food, the way others were during the Depression. She wasn't built to haul scrap metal or work in the factories, the way every other girl on the block does.

And it turns out that there's something else she's not built to do.

She'd gone to the doctor at Bucky's insistence, although it means they can't afford the light bill for the month, so Bucky has to put her books away when the sun goes down rather than sit up all night reading. But Bucky had furrowed her eyebrows when Stephanie told her that it just hadn't happened for her yet and that her ma said she was just fine, and responded she'd rather hear it from a medical professional.

Stephanie's known about it, of course, known that it was something that was supposed to come, but that it could take awhile, and as years went on, she'd sort of forgotten that it ought to have arrived by then. She'd never talked about it with anyone in her adult life, or ever, except for a half-forgotten conversation with her ma and what she'd read in her medical textbooks.

And when you're talking about a literal bloody pain, who'd want to rush that?

But she hasn't prepared herself for the doctor's words, the promise that it would never happen. What made women, well, _women_ , wasn't coming for her.

She can never have children.

She's never gone steady with a guy, never even pictured that happening to her, but she's always expected that someday she'll settle down and have a family. Two boys and a girl. She and Bucky have talked about it before. She's said she'd name the girl Sara, for her Ma, one of the boys Noah. She's always loved the name Noah. And then Bucky would smile and put on a fake hurt voice, and Stephanie would clarify that of course the other boy would be named James, for his Aunt Bucky.

And then Bucky would laugh and bump her arm and the breath would catch in her throat. Or sometimes, if she'd been drinking, Bucky would lean in and rest her head on Stephanie's shoulder and say that it was a good thing she'd be doing that, because Bucky was never having children.

And Stephanie would always ask her why, and Bucky would smile and say "Can you picture me as someone's Mama?"

Stephanie can. Stephanie can picture her holding Noah while James and Sara play at her feet. She can see Bucky tucking the three into bed, kissing their foreheads, caring for them when they get sick.

She definitely can picture Bucky as someone's Ma.

But now there will be no Sara, Noah, or James. There will be no home for Aunt Bucky to even come visit, because Stephanie is… She is… She is defective.

Bucky finds her up there later that night, and asks how it went. Stephanie doesn't answer, but tears well in her eyes and Bucky wraps her arms around her and kisses her forehead and sits up and looks at the sky with her until they see the sun breaking over the edge of the horizon.

"You are such a good thing in my life, Stephanie Grace Rogers."

 **…**

There's no fanfare for her. No one stands at attention as she walks downstairs. Stark is in the control room, Phillips is glaring at her from the gallery, and Erskine is wiping down her arms with alcohol pads. She's in a thin paper gown, which is nearly translucent and probably leaving far too little to the imagination.

Paul, to his credit, or perhaps to her detriment, has barely looked at her since she walked out in it.

She's never minded needles, never would have been able to afford to, yet the thought of getting injected with something that makes a grown man cry makes her stomach turn, especially when she sees that the needles are big enough to go straight through her thighs. But duty, honor, and country take her towards the steps and Paul hands her into the machine, squeezes her arm, and whispers good luck, before it's just her and Erskine.

"Comfortable?" He asks, glancing down at her.

She looks up at the machine that's engulfing her, that looked about right for Hodge and far too large for her. "It's a little big." Erskine smirks at that.

"Mr. Stark? How are the levels?"

"Levels are at 100%. We may dim half the lights in Brooklyn but we are ready. As we'll ever be."

On that note, Erskine inserts the serum into the machine, and she already knows about what will happen, about the micro-injections and the vita-rays, but it's comforting to hear him repeat it to her anyways.

He gives her a shot of penicillin, and that's the last thing she can remember before the pain rips through her body.

 **…**

Nursing school is one heck of an experience. Food is included, part of the government subsidy, and it would seem that eating regularly and having heat and medication is enough to keep Stephanie from falling too terribly ill.

She feels a burgeoning sense of dread when they first arrive, when Bucky seems to be easily absorbed into the social fold with the other students and Stephanie, as usual, is left floundering, but Bucky has never wavered in her loyalties, and Stephanie feels ashamed that she's even thought she might. Bucky is there, every morning, on the seat next to Stephanie's at breakfast, every afternoon, in the desk beside her, and every night, laying in the bed that's not two feet away.

The lessons are brutal, and Stephanie knows that the teachers keep looking at her like they expect her to faint, because of course the small, anemic, _weak_ looking girl can't hold her composure when faced with needles, or blood, but she keeps herself together even when others are falling apart, and cannot help the hint of pride in her smile when she sees the instructors' eyes glimmer with approval.

It's after their first practical lesson, during their second month, where they're brought down to the hospital and put to the test, that Stephanie realizes that it is nothing to be proud of.

There's a lot of methodical work, changing sheets and cleaning bedpans, but a trauma case comes in, a man who got crushed under a train car down at the track yard, his hands tied behind his back, and Bucky's assigned to it. She comes out with a pale face and wide eyes, and Stephanie doesn't think she stops shaking until they're back in the dorms. That's when Bucky mumbles something Stephanie has to ask her to repeat, and it's "I knew him."

Stephanie pushes her hair behind her ear and asks Bucky who it was. "His name was Alex, he used to work at the restaurant with me. He was a busboy."

And suddenly Stephanie doesn't need to ask any more, because she remembers Alex too. Alex who was always getting the stuffing kicked out of him, or his teeth knocked out, or his head bashed in, and when she asked Bucky why, Bucky'd scraped the toe of her shoe against the ground, shook her head, and told her "He's one of those fairy boys Steph, you know."

Stephanie knows. She knows what happens to the queers who show it off, and the ones who try to hide it, too. Usually it ends once whatever group of boys the queer had pissed off decides that they've properly beaten the girl out of him.

She knows that sometimes people go too far, that someone ends up dead. But this wasn't some barroom fight gone foul. This was someone tying a boy up and leaving him on the tracks. This was murder. This was…

Exactly what she deserves. Everyone knows that there's something wrong with homos, and if they're going to pull the stuff Alex did, if they're not even going to try to act normal, then that's what they get, what they deserve.

That night, though, Bucky crawls into Stephanie's bed and presses her head into the crook of Stephanie's neck, and Stephanie can't help but wonder what it is that she deserves.

 **…**

The first thing that comes to mind, when the machine opens and Stephanie stumbles out, is that she remembers that the ground used to be much closer. Her balance is skewed, and she sinks down to one knee, the other leg extended in front of her. And what a leg it is.

The length is what she notices first. It extends further ahead of her than she's imagined possible. There's muscle tone where there used to be skin clinging to bone. The skin itself seems healthier, almost glowing.

When she puts her hands out to steady her, she again stops to marvel. She's always had slender fingers, but her hands were tiny. So small her fingers barely extend to the edges of Bucky's palms, when they pressed them together. Now they're large and long, and fingers lead to hands, and hands lead to wrists, and she sees even her bones are different; where there once were thin, thin bones that looked as fragile as glass just under her translucent skin, there's suddenly a thickness, a weight and a heft, and she knows that they're sturdy, that they won't snap at the slightest provocation.

Although it takes her a moment to find her footing, when she does, she nearly gets a head rush. The ground is so far. She towers over Erskine, Stark comes up to about her shoulders, and she's even clearing Paul's head, although just barely.

"Amazing," he breathes, reaching out to help her find her balance. And then suddenly Colonel Phillips is there, handing her a robe that draws her attention to the fact that although she's much longer, the paper gown she'd been wearing is not.

Everything happens so quickly after that. Phillips and Stark set up meeting after meeting, and she goes to each with Erskine answering questions and everyone looking at her and Paul standing to the side and decidedly _not_ looking at her. She wishes she could write to Bucky about what's happened, gain some insight or advice from someone who's always been at ease as the center of attention, but Bucky's letters are short and usually covered in flecks of grime, written in bits late at night and early in the morning. She's barely got the time to scribble out 'still safe' to her parents, yet she always takes time to send Stephanie the same, so that she won't worry. So she won't be scared and do something stupid.

Like sign on for a secret government experiment to create the perfect soldier.

But still, everything in her life moves so quickly in the days after the serum that she barely has time to catch her breath.

Up until the German agent shoots Erskine in the middle of his presentation, and chews a cyanide capsule before she can find out who sent him. That's when things screech to a halt.

 **…**

They're enjoying one of their rare days off, relaxing on their beds in the dorms, just the two of them for the first time in so long, when Bucky rolls onto her side, throws her novel onto her bedside table, and says to Stephanie, "Draw me."

Stephanie glances up from the textbook she's been hunched over. "Huh?" She's sure she misheard, the ambient noise from the radio announcer's depiction of the Dodger's game distorting the noise.

"You haven't since we were in high school," Bucky points out, sounding almost hurt at the thought. "I know we've been busy, but you shouldn't just quit drawing."

Stephanie bites her lip. The truth is, she hasn't quit drawing. She's just quit drawing Bucky. It's just that she feels like she was taking advantage, looking and looking at Bucky, when she knows she's looking in a way she shouldn't. But if Bucky's _offering_ …

"You sure? You'll have to be still."

Bucky looks almost affronted. "I'm not twelve any more, Stevie. I think I can sit still."

So Stephanie reaches under her mattress (where she hides what she doesn't want anyone else to find) and pulls out her sketchbook with an exaggerated air of annoyance, sighing and saying "Well, gosh, Bucky, I guess if you insist."

"I do." Bucky looks as pleased as the cat who caught the canary as she fusses with her hair, shoving loose strands behind her ears, but Stephanie stops her.

"No, no, just leave it like this…" Stephanie wants to ask how Bucky keeps her hair so soft, as she arranges a few locks hanging forward into her face. It's been rare, lately, for Bucky to leave her hair out of its usual braid at all. Stephanie understands the practicality of it, but she thinks it looks nicer down is all. She doesn't realize she's said this out loud until she sees the grin on Bucky's face.

So Bucky preens and poses and sits _just right_ in the light, and Stephanie sharpens her pencil and sets to work.

Stephanie's pretty sure she could draw Bucky's face with her eyes closed, but she still pauses before she makes the first stroke, just studying it. The angles and curves have always been mesmerizing to her, since the first day she saw her when they were twelve. The rounded edge of her cheek, the sharp cut of her jaw. Her large eyes, her tiny nose, her full lips… Her full lips… Stephanie blinks, breaks the spell, and puts the pencil to the page.

She knows Bucky's a normal girl, she knows Bucky doesn't feel what she feels when Bucky looks back at her. Bucky looks at boys, the way she ought, and she's real happy like that, too. And Stephanie's happy for her. Truly. If anyone deserves to be normal, and happy, it's Bucky. Stephanie just likes to look.

Bucky grins at her with those full lips when she sees the finished product, and in her own hand adds her caption, her mantra ever since the day she rescued Stephanie in that alleyway. 'Til the end of the line' the inscription reads.

It's later that day that they hear on the radio about Pearl Harbor.

 **…**

Stephanie's been on the tour circuit for months now, using her brand new body for dancing and singing rather than serving her country in any sort of useful capacity.

Stephanie'd like to have words with whoever convinced Phillips that the best way to keep track of her is to stick her in the middle of a USO show.

There's a little song, and she and the other women shimmy their hips while Boyd (4F for flat feet) and Jimmy (4F for respiratory distress) act out a little skit of a costumed 'Captain America' knocking out Hitler.

She really hates the little caps she has to pin to her hair.

They take the show all across the US, selling bonds and cheering up crowds, before shipping out to the front, and performing for the troops. The show travels on a similar circuit to the SSR, and often in each new location she'll be pulled away from the rest of the dancers for more samples of blood, hair, skin, and whatever else, more tests of how fast she can run, how much weight she can lift, before they inevitably determine that there is nothing that can predict what she'll become next, or how to replicate the serum that has caused this drastic change in the first place.

Their show is by far the most popular one, making it into short ads for war bonds that play in the movies, their pictures being spread across the nation as the symbol of hope and freedom for all. Stephanie sometimes wonders if copies get passed around back home, if maybe Bucky's sisters or one of her old classmates looks at them and recognizes her, or if no one in the world cares about what's become of Stephanie Grace Rogers now that Jamie Buchanan Barnes is no longer at her side.

Bucky's stopped answering her letters.

(Stephanie tries not to think about what that means.)

When they reach Italy, the reception to the show is very different. Boyd and Jimmy are practically booed off the stage, and while the men call for 'the girls' to come back, Stephanie knows that a little song and dance won't be enough to fix the world that's fallen apart all around them.

She's a darn dancing monkey, and she's never felt it worse than when Paul finds her afterwards, taking shelter from the rain and sketching. But he reminds her, "You were meant for more than this."

So she tells him, tells him about what she's dreamed about, serving her country, protecting others from harm. How she sees the men around her who look as though they've been through hell, and how she can't stand to sit to the side and do nothing.

He tells her that these ones _have_ been through hell. That they've engaged with Schmidt's troops, that the ones in the audience were what was left of the destroyed 107th.

The 107th.

And she's on her feet, sprinting through the rain.

Phillips (it's always Phillips, isn't it?) tells her that the 107th regiment was smashed, support personnel included, and, yes, he remembers writing a letter to the Barnes's, as if a letter can ever explain that the worst thing you've imagined is true, that your daughter, your sister, your Bucky is gone, that she gave her life trying to care for others, trying to protect the home front, that she'll never see you again, or smile at you again, or throw her arms around you and sigh "Oh, Stevie" again…

The rest of the conversation blurs, and she can't quite get enough air in her lungs, but she manages to ask about rescue plans and trying to save any prisoners that might be left, but Phillips is dismissive and cold, and she knows it's because he's spent all day trying to pen out that a hundred souls have been lost under his care, and she nods at her dismissal, too busy memorizing the placement of the little pins on the strategic map behind him to really make note of what is being said.

Paul tries to slow her down, but she's always been able to build a full head of steam all on her own, and with the body to match her big emotions, she's not ready to let anyone stand in her way. "You said you thought I was meant for more than this. Didn't you mean it?"

 **…**

Their class has moved onto solely practical work now, with the war on, sitting in on the occasional lecture in between. They're assigned in groups to different floors in the hospitals and spend four weeks at a time in each ward, learning the different skills.

Stephanie's in maternity her first go-round. It seems like a cruel joke that the infertile woman is sent to work with laboring mothers, but she's soon wrapped up in the moment-to-moment to really let it affect her personally. Well, too much.

Each woman has a story. Some are excited and overjoyed as they await their babies, some are scared, some (the ones Stephanie finds most interesting and, consequently, goes the most out of her way to help) are embarrassed, with bare fourth fingers on their left hands, no husband in sight. Sometimes those ones take the babies with them when they leave; more often then not they ask her to make a call for them, and soon after the birth someone from a church or a social program comes and picks up the child. There are two nuns who have come so often she recognizes them on sight, if not by name.

Each woman has a story, and Stephanie often stays up late into the night afterwards, sketching the juxtaposing frantic and loving looks on the young couples' faces, the overwhelming joy of the older couples who had believed that they would never have a child, the agony of the young men whose wives were lost, who were suddenly widowers and fathers in the same breath.

Bucky is sent to work on the surgical floor, and comes back every day with new stories about the doctors and patients. The girls in the ward with her swear her impressions of the chief surgeon are dead on, as she pinches her lips and says to them all, in a nasally voice, 'Ladies, remember to be the _cap_ tains of your own souls'. (Apparently, the man is a fan of Churchill.)

So Stephanie draws and Bucky makes them all laugh, and that's how they finish out the evenings of their time in school, and Stephanie wouldn't have it any other way.

Well, she reflects, glancing across the room at where Bucky commands the attention of three of their dorm-mates while they pin up their hair before bed, that might be a bit of an overstatement.

 **…**

Stephanie's never been much of a fan of Stark, always a little uncomfortable with the man, but when Paul asks, and Stark obliges, gets them aboard a plane, gets them over the lines, gets them into Austria, she swears she could kiss him. Not that she'd tell him that; she'd likely never hear the end of it from him or from Paul.

She's going to be courtmartialed if she gets back alive. Paul didn't tell her where he got the gun for her but she's sure it's not regulation to for a USO dancer to be carrying one, never mind the rest of the gear he kitted her out with.

Stark tells her he can drop her right on the doorstep, and she nods, queasy. She's never liked heights, but hurling herself out of a plane is probably the least dangerous thing she'll do tonight, so onwards she presses.

The sky begins to explode around them, and she knows it's time to go.

"As soon as I'm clear, turn this thing around and get out!"

Paul reaches for her, but before he can grab her arm, convince her to wait, to pull back, regroup, or perhaps rethink this whole, harebrained scheme, she's thrown herself from the plane and is already hurtling to the ground.

She'd kept her hand on the cord Stark had shown her on her parachute, and is grateful for it as she falls. There's too much gunfire and wind for her to have ever found it in the dark, and she pulls it as soon as she's sure she's clear of the plane engine.

The chute slows her descent marginally, but as Stephanie squints through the wind to catch a glimpse of the ever approaching ground, she lets out a gasp of surprise, right before she hits the tree.

It's a ridiculously large pine, and she smacks into several branches on her way down, until she's caught and stopped by her tangled parachute, cloth and cords twisting in the branches. ' _So much for a smooth landing_ ,' Stephanie thinks to herself, as she reaches for her knife to cut herself free.

After she's loose, she finds that it's easy to navigate the woods, easier than it should be, and she suspects that the serum has improved her vision past what was originally expected. She makes her way to the gates, and pauses. The wall is too high and too well-manned for her to scale it. But she can hear a rumbling from the road behind her, and soon enough a convoy pulls through. She watches, judges the distance, and focuses in on the open back of the last truck in line.

Stephanie takes a running leap and manages to tuck and roll into the truck. She straightens up, elated as the truck keeps going, just to see two HYDRA operators staring at her.

"Fellas," she nods to them, and they're both so taken aback by the blonde woman who just tumbled into their lives that she is able to throw the first punch.

She's never fought anyone before, only seen it done, when men brawl at the dance hall or when the boys were training in hand to hand at their basic course. But she's watched enough to know how to throw a punch (Shoulders up, thumb on the outside, pivot from the back foot), and with the strength from the serum backing her up, they go down before either has a chance to pull a weapon on her. She tosses them out of the back of the truck before it even reaches the camp's gates.

The next few minutes pass in a blur, as Stephanie makes her way through the compound, finds the shattered remains of Bucky's unit (the nurses press against the wall of their cages like animals, reaching out to her when she moves to free them, grasping at her and shaking, whimpering and wailing in desperation) and speaks softly above the whispered commotion for Bucky Barnes.

A British woman tells her she's been taken to the isolation ward, but no one ever comes back from that.

She gives them directions for how to escape, tells them to run hard and fast, but one of them stops her. "We're helping," the girl says, so she revises the plan, tells them to grab what they can and do what they must, then meet her in the clearing past the tree line, and runs.

Stephanie can hear the commotion behind her, and knows that the rage she saw in the eyes of these women will serve them well, but fear blooms in her chest when she hears the pop-pop-pop of gunfire, and the unmistakable 'boom' of an explosion, as it occurs to her that she may well have just sent these women to their deaths.

She finds the ward they told her about, but there are too many halls, too many rooms, she'll never be able to check them all. She closes her eyes, and focuses. Her hearing's better than it should be, and she can make out a faint mumble in a voice she'd recognize from the grave.

When Stephanie pushes the door open, snapping the lock, she wants to cry. Bucky's there, Bucky's alive, but she looks like she shouldn't be. She's in a tattered hospital gown, strapped to a table, so thin her bones stand prominently in her face, her wrists, her hands. There are cuts criss-crossing over the soles of her feet, her legs, her arms, every part of her that's exposed. Her hair's greasy and sticks to her forehead, and her blue eyes can't seem to focus on anything at all.

"Bucky, Bucky," Stephanie breathes, and rips the straps off the bed. She wants to gather her in her arms and hold her close, but somehow she manages to restrain herself. She remembers her training, assesses her for any obvious injury, when Bucky finally speaks.

"Is… Is that—"

"It's me. It's Stephanie."

"Steph?" And she nods, knowing that they need to move, they need to go, but she's frozen in the moment and Bucky breathes out, "Stephanie."

"I thought you were dead," she chokes out, her breath tight in her chest.

Bucky looks her up and down through hazy, half open eyes. "I thought you were smaller." Once she's on her feet, Stephanie wraps Bucky's arm around her shoulders, and her own around Bucky's waist, and hauls her out of the room. She can't help herself from pulling Bucky tight and pressing her face into her hair, a new sensation given her height. Even under the sweat and blood, Stephanie can smell a trace of lavender and vanilla.

"Wha' happened to you?" Bucky slurs.

"I joined the army." Stephanie knows there's more to say, so much more to tell, but right now neither one of them can afford to waste energy as they run down the hallway to the warehouse, to the exit.

Bucky, ever the mother hen, even in a moment like this, is full of questions. "Did it hurt?"

"A little."

"'S it permanent?"

"So far."

Bucky laughs in a way that tells Stephanie that she doesn't quite know what's going on, and the warehouse room in front of them fills with an explosion that knocks them both back.

The way ahead is filled with fire, but to go back is to die. Stephanie squints through the smoke, begins to formulate a way across, when Schmidt appears from the smog.

"So-" His voice cuts across the room, echoing in the wide space as he steps across the catwalk towards her, "Dr. Erskine managed it after all. How exciting." He speaks accented English, and just the sight of him and his assistant (Zola, she remembers from the briefings) makes Bucky flinch back, something Stephanie does not have the capacity to unpack in that moment. "It's not exactly an improvement, but still. Impressive nonetheless." He approaches her casually, as if she couldn't possibly be a threat.

"You've got no idea," Stephanie mumbles, before she rolls back and punches him. The blow marks where his face begins to tear off of his head, revealing the red horror underneath.

No one had ever quite been able to figure out why Schmidt was known as 'The Red Skull', and Stephanie wishes she still didn't know, but the demonic face staring at her from where his flesh mask peeled away in unmistakably the origin of the moniker.

The fight is brief but terrifying; one wrong move and one or both would fall into the flames growing on the floor below. Before it comes to that, Zola pulls a lever that separates the two sides of the catwalk, leaving Stephanie and Bucky trapped on their side of the fiery chasm as Schmidt and Zola make their escape.

Stephanie looks around the room, eyes scanning for anything that could help. _This is just like the flagpole_ , she thinks, _it just requires a little creative problem solving_. "C'mon, we have to go up and over," she tells Bucky, who nods, her face creased as she does her best to focus on the beams criss-crossing the ceiling, the set of maintenance stairs leading up to them.

Stephanie runs and Bucky stumbles after; she's careful to be slow enough that Bucky can keep up, a new sensation. The rail of the stairs is hot beneath her hands as the fire roars beneath them, and Stephanie flashes back to Sunday school, realizes that this must be hell, and her eternal punishment.

There's a way across the ceiling of the warehouse room, to the exit, but the beam they'd have to climb looks unsteady and shakes with each new blast. It's the only option. "Let's go," she tells Bucky, already hoisting her over the rail. "One at a time," she clarifies when Bucky looks back for her, and her heart aches.

The beam shakes and clatters while Bucky inches across, then gives a massive shudder, and Bucky makes a running leap, grabs on to the railing on the other side just as it falls out from under her. Stephanie is trapped on the other side. Still, something in her chest loosens; her way may be lost, but Bucky made it across safely.

Bucky turns, and stares at Stephanie with big eyes as she realizes it, too. "There's gotta be a rope or something!"

"Just go, go! Get out of here!"

Bucky shakes her head, bangs the railing. "No, not without you!"

Stubborn girl, Stephanie wants to laugh, wants to cry. Of course Bucky wouldn't make it easy for her. Jamie Buchanan Barnes has never made anything easy for anyone her entire life. But she's with her, til the end of the line.

And so it's not so much for herself, but so that Bucky won't waste her chance, that Stephanie bends the railing back so that she can make a running leap across the fiery chasm.

 **…**

A storm rages outdoors, lashing against the dormitory window, thunder rumbling and lightning flashing. The dorm is often heavy with the sounds of sleep, but tonight Stephanie can't hear anything over the sound of the glass rattling in its pane. She has her head buried under her pillow to try to dull the noise, when she feels a hand on her shoulder.

"Agh!" She has to squint through the dark to make out the shape looming over her. "Buck? Is that you? You scared the daylights out of me, what's wrong?"

Bucky doesn't speak, Stephanie can see the way she looks at the floor, hear her deep breaths.

"Is it the storm?" _I thought you were done with this_ , she wants to say. _You told me it wasn't a problem any more_ , she wants to say. _Is there anything else to this?_

"Here." She says instead, scooting over and flipping the covers back. Without a word, Bucky slips in next to her, her breath hot on Stephanie's neck.

Stephanie is careful. Stephanie is always careful, this isn't like when they were children. She's very careful not to reach out, grab tight, and hold her close.

Of course that doesn't mean that she can't appreciate the way Bucky's perfume seeps into the pillows, making them smell like lavender and vanilla, or how warm it is with someone laying beside her.

She knows better. She knows that this is just cause Bucky always hated storms, since they were girls, since the roof blew off of the building across the street and a brick came flying through her window and near about killed her. It's just cause of the storm. Still, if this is all she'll ever have, can't she just enjoy it, just for the moment?

Stephanie knows it's a risk, but she moves her arm slowly to the side, as far as she can without touching, then, carefully, splays her fingers. Her pinky brushes against Bucky's wrist.

Bucky's careful too. When Stephanie wakes up the next morning, she's already back in her own bed.

 **…**

Somehow they survive. Somehow they make it out, and see the mess Bucky's cellmates have made of the HYDRA troops, regroup and begin the walk back. Bucky introduces Stephanie around, to Jaqueline Dernier, Gabby Jones, Jane Morita, Tammy "Dum Dum" Dugan, and a British girl they all just call Monty. She says they were cell mates, and the other women took care of her when she was sick and injured.

For possibly the first time in her life, Stephanie's too grateful to feel jealous of the other women in Bucky's life. She gets the story from them, as they march across Austria and back to Italy, about how Dum Dum, Jones, and Monty had managed to figure out the controls on a tank, while Morita got her hands on one of the energy guns. Dernier pouts about how all she found were grenades, but given some gentle pressing, admits that they were better than the Molotov cocktails she used to make back home. At Stephanie's surprised look, she explains that she'd been part of the French resistance before she was captured, and intends to go back and free Paris all by herself if that's what it takes.

"Remind you of anyone, Steph?" Bucky whispers to Stephanie teasingly, while they both pretend that the arm she has slung around Stephanie's neck is to pull her close, and not because she can't stand on her own.

Dum Dum, the American with a silly hat, had apparently been stationed with Bucky before they'd been captured, and she tells her all about how when the world went to hell around them, Bucky had grabbed a dead man's gun, tossed it to her, and told her that they were not going to die that day.

"And we didn't, did we?" Bucky laughs, but there's a strain behind her eyes Stephanie's never seen before.

They make it to camp just as the sun begins to set on the third day, and every last soldier comes out to cheer them.

Phillips is furious and Paul is thrilled, and while everyone else goes off to write reports, she sits down with the two of them and tells them she wants to start a covert ops team.

"Now that we've seen what I can do, what I was built to do, why the heck are we running from it?" She asks. "Between us, we took down a HYDRA base—"

"You got lucky! You're even more lucky I haven't had you tried for treason, pulling a stunt like that—"

"I know you're angry, I know I disobeyed orders, but just listen! No one suspects that a group of women could do that much damage, no one would ever see us coming, and if we fail, then it's not like you lost good men on it." The last part is biting and sarcastic but necessary for Phillips to agree to even consider it.

It takes darn near fighting a war on base (no one wants to believe that a unit of women could be capable on the battlefield, and even once she's got approval for the unit as a whole, she's got a whole other fight about getting Jones and Morita approved and if she hears 'The law is very clear on the issue of integration Miss Rogers' _one more time_ ), but finally, _finally_ , Stephanie gets permission to form her team, and after several weeks in stasis, she gets to break the news to the ladies.

She hasn't had time to spend with the girls, and they're all temporarily relieved from duty, so while she's been arguing and wheedling and 'yessir'ing, they've been out drinking every night, their only jobs having been to file their reports and show up three times a day for formation.

She hasn't had the courage to talk to Bucky one on one since she's gotten her off that table.

There are questions she needs to ask and things about, well, about the way that she is now, that she needs to explain, things she couldn't on the walk back when there were close to a hundred women surrounding them, able to hear it all. It's a conversation she's imagined having after the war, back in their apartment safe and sound, where they can laugh about it and the danger they're both in is not so real and immediate.

And she's afraid that Bucky won't look at her the same way.

She's so worried about Bucky, she doesn't think about what the rest of them will say.

When she first broaches the subject, in a cramped pub that stops serving at seven so it can shut down in case of air raids, Dum Dum takes a deep swig of her beer, and Jones asks, "We barely got out alive, and you want us to go back?"

And Stephanie's heart drops. Of course they wouldn't want to go back into the belly of the beast, not when they'd barely made it out with their lives the first time, who in their right mind would want to? Part of her wants to wheedle and try to convince them that it would be different this time, but there's no way she'd lie to them to try to drag them back into war. "Pretty much."

Monty grins at her, sharp toothed and wicked, and Stephanie schools her face to keep the shock off of it. "I think it sounds quite… Fun."

Morita shrugs into her drink. "I'm in."

After a rapid-fire exchange in French, Jones and Dernier shake hands, then turn to nod at Stephanie.

"Hell," Dum Dum sighs, "I'm always up for a fight. But you're buying tonight, you hear me, Rogers?"

Stephanie laughs with them as they crack a few more jokes, then goes to the bar for another round. Once she's carried the drinks back to the table, which is met with mock salutes by the other women, she goes searching for Bucky. It's not hard to find her chatting up one of the bartenders near the piano, but she dismisses him with a wave of her hand when Stephanie makes her way beside her, and for just an instant, it feels just like old times.

"They're all idiots," Bucky tells her flatly, sipping a drink, before she can even get a word out. "Go on, ask me, I know you want to."

Stephanie feels, for the first time since the procedure, small. So very small.

Of course Bucky wouldn't agree. Heck, she was a POW, she's probably got her dismissal papers all lined up, honorable discharge and all that. But she has to ask. "Are you ready to follow… Colonel Philips into the jaws of death?"

Bucky shakes her head, takes another sip of beer, and scrapes the toe of her shoe against the floor. "Nah," and even though Stephanie knew that she'd say no, her stomach still drops. "Nah," Bucky repeats, "That little girl from Brooklyn who is too dumb not to run away from a fight… I'm following her."

Stephanie could near about cry from relief, even when Bucky leans in conspiratorially and whispers, "You're keeping the skirt, right?"

"You know, it's kind of growing on me."

Bucky glances to the side, bites her lip. "'Sides, I figure it's time I put my money where my mouth is, yeah?"

"What do you mean?"

"Been saying I'm with you til the end of the line since we were kids. Guess it's about time I prove it."

And Stephanie knows that she means it. She knows that in whatever time, whatever place, Bucky Barnes always has been and always will be with her, til the end of the line. There are no words that she can find to respond.

Behind them, the girls are singing, and both Stephanie and Bucky stand to return to them, when Paul walks in, looking smart in a dress uniform. "Sir," Bucky salutes, while Stephanie takes a less formal stance.

"Howard has some equipment for you to try tomorrow morning," he tells her, and she nods. This is Paul, not some Washington bureaucrat she needs to talk into taking her seriously, but for some reason, she feels a little self conscious.

"Sounds good."

They hold each other's gaze for a moment, and Stephanie feels Bucky shift beside her. "I can hear your top squad prepping for duty," Paul finally says.

"What, you don't like music?" Bucky snarks, instantly defensive. Stephanie feels like she ought to smooth things over, explain that Paul's the one who helped her get out to Kreischberg, but something tells her that even if Bucky knew who he was, she wouldn't be his biggest fan.

"Oh, I do, actually," Paul says, but doesn't spare her a glance. "I might even, when this is all over, go dancing."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Bucky asks, scraping the toe of her boot against the floor, hands on her hips. She's getting a little belligerent, which isn't exactly a new look for Bucky, but for once, Stephanie can't pinpoint the cause.

"The right partner. 0800, Rogers."

Stephanie nods while Paul walks away, a warm feeling curling in her stomach. It's not that she wants to be _with_ Paul, exactly. She doesn't know if she'll ever want to be with a man the way she wants, well… But the point is, it's nice to be desired, not by some stranger in the street who watches your legs while you walk by, but instead by a man, a good, decent, kind man who plenty of other women would want to want them, even if Stephanie herself may never be able to reciprocate.

To that point; Bucky begins to laugh, but it's not her normal, kind one. This noise is grating, and her words are harsh. "I'm invisible. It's like I'm turning into you, it's like a horrible dream."

And Stephanie knows better, after years of tamping her true thoughts down, to let them bubble up now, or to let the hurt at Bucky's dig show on her face, so she pats Bucky on the shoulder, tells her not to take things so hard. "Maybe he's got a friend."

 **…**

It's the night before graduation, and for the first time Stephanie can remember, she wants to go dancing and Bucky doesn't. It's enough to give her pause, and she offers to sit in with her like Bucky has on countless nights that Stephanie's been too tired or too sick or too plain fed up with the institution to go out. But Bucky insists that she go and have a good time, and looks like she won't take no for an answer, going so far as to tuck a dollar into her pocket and tell her to have a few drinks, on her.

But even elated over graduation that she half-believed would never come, at least not for her, Stephanie's a lightweight, and she stumbles home far before any of the other girls, not interested in sitting alone while they find company for the night.

She staggers, giggling, into the dorm, to find Bucky laying on her bed reading. It's not an uncommon sight, Bucky's always loved her books, but her brow is furrowed, and she has a frown on her face. Stephanie walks forward, until she can see the title, and her blood runs cold.

 _The Well of Loneliness_ had taken her months to track down; it may not have been officially censored but was still certainly difficult to get ahold of, back when she was a teenager with shaking fingers turning the pages of a story that she wasn't sure she was ready to read. It was the first book she'd ever read that put a name to what _it_ was, calling it an inversion, and told the tale of a woman who found a way to live with it. For a time, at least.

And Bucky is reading it. Stephanie'd kept her copy hidden under her mattress, ignoring the lump, but Bucky must have dug it out, somehow, seen it, and now, well, now she must know.

Trembling, Stephanie sits down on her bed, waiting for Bucky to look up from the book, when she notices… She notices. The lump is still under her mattress. But then how—

"Sorry," Bucky finally glances up. "I'm trying to finish all my library books by tomorrow, and it's slow going. I took out too many." She gestures to a stack by the foot of her bed.

"Oh. That- That's your book?"

"Well, the library's," Bucky nods, flipping a page.

"Oh."

After a moment, Bucky says, "Listen to this, Steph. '"God," she gasped, "we believe; we have told You we believe . . . We have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence!"' Isn't that just…" She doesn't finish the sentence.

"I didn't know you were interested in that sort of book," Stephanie said, faux-casually.

"What do you mean, 'that sort of book'? It's well-written."

Stephanie nodded, her brow furrowed.

"C'mon, Steph, we need to pack up for tomorrow," Bucky says, closing the book and putting it to the side. "We're just about real nurses."

Stephanie cleared her throat. "Yeah, I guess we are."

 **…**

War is hell.

Oh, Stephanie knows that going in. But she's served in a trauma unit, during nursing school, and figures that there aren't too many things she'll see now that she didn't see then. She's wrong. She's seen pain and agony and suffering, but nothing like this. Never before has she seen such horror so willingly inflicted by other human beings.

And that's just on the battlefield. When she considers the _camp_ that they stumbled across, oh Holy God in Heaven-

It gets to be too much.

Bucky and Stark had the time of their lives, figuring out the equipment for the missions. Stark was all set to kit them out the first time they came to the workshop, but after about ten minutes talking to Bucky, he was already drawing up new plans. Bucky, for her part, had walked in knowing what she wanted, and she walked out holding her brand new, state of the art, computerized sniper rifle that had her shooting with near perfect accuracy from almost a half a mile back. After that, she'd spent close to a month locked up with the man, working out explosives and weapons specialized for each of them, while the others underwent a revised basic training course.

Stephanie does her level best not to think too much about what all they got up to in there.

The missions, when they go smoothly, are practically routine. They scout, they plan, they blow down the front door, and they overrun the base. Between the maps Dernier thought to smuggle out of their prison, and everything the women could remember overhearing from their time in captivity, they've got a pretty good idea of where the main HYDRA weapons facilities are. And all past intelligence has led them to believe that they'll find Schmidt hiding in one of them.

Each mission deals a crippling blow to HYDRA, regardless, the effects of which they can clearly see as reports roll in from across the continent, about the sudden shortage of Germany's high-tech weapons and the way the tide has begun to turn in favor of the Allies. Of course, the news credits it all to ingenuity of the generals, and maybe the Americans' help, and never to them.

Their unit, The Howling Commandos (Dum Dum came up with the name, and honestly, Stephanie _does not want to know_ ) are an elite sort of special ops by necessity, and so top secret that there's just about no one in the whole world who knows what they're doing, or so they think. They'd been told from the start that they could never speak of their contributions, that the world would never know that a unit of women, and an integrated one at that, had had such a hand in shaping its history, which is what makes Gabby's mail delivery such a shock, and such an insult.

It happens over breakfast, that she reads her letters, then unfolds the comic book her brother had sent her. Her face goes from confused to enraged in a matter of seconds as she reads on. Dum Dum, sitting across from her, watches curiously for a few moments, before tugging it out of her hands to read it herself. Stephanie abandons the bacon ration that Bucky had dumped from her plate to Stephanie's, to see what Dum Dum has to say, because Gabby certainly doesn't seem to want to explain. Dum Dum makes a noise of outrage and thrusts the comic into the middle of the table, for them all to see.

' **Captain America and the Howling Commandos** ' reads the colorful title, enough to knock the breath out of Stephanie for a moment, but then she sees what's caused the anger on Gabby and Dum Dum's faces. Emblazoned across the cover is a photo of a smiling, blond haired man in a red, white and blue uniform. Standing at attention behind him are a gang of uniformed soldiers, all of them men. All of them white.

The women crowd together, silently, and watch as Gabby flips through the pages, her dark face like ice. It's clear, even without taking the time to read each page, that it's meant to be a facsimile of the rescue from the Austrian weapons facility.

"My brother says," Gabby begins, her voice low, "that they're on every street corner. Selling better than Batman. He says there are stories about them in the news reels before the movies."

Stephanie's not sure how it happens, but they're all suddenly in the command tent, demanding answers. Philips responds that it's good for morale, and that names and locations are changed, so their safety was never compromised.

"It says 'Based on true stories' on the cover!" Monty rages. "So the world can know that the Howling Commandos exist, but I can't write my own goddamn mum and let her know I'm not in Italy nursing amputees?"

"Why weren't we informed?" Stephanie asks, trying to keep her voice level.

"This military operates on a 'need-to-know' basis, and you ladies did not need to know. Now get out of here and finish your breakfast," Philips orders, and one by one, they file out. Respect for the chain of command overrides all on the front.

Stephanie, however, stands her ground until Paul gives her a sad smile. "Captain Rogers already has enlistment up. It's never been personal, Stephanie, you know that."

Her throat tight, she nods and turns away.

"Rogers, wait." And she turns, stupidly expecting an apology. "Tell 'em to be ready to ship out tomorrow," Philips instructs. "We have new intel, Armin Zola's going to be on a train in the Alps sometime in the next couple weeks, your team should be able to hijack it, no problems."

 **…**

They're back in the city, for the first time in months. Bucky's ma and her little sisters crowd around her soon as they get off the train, Rebecca shooting off at the mouth about school and the new family that moved in the neighborhood, til her ma tells her it's rude to gossip. Stephanie's never felt uncomfortable, exactly, around the Barnes's, but it's hard not to be a little put out when she's standing on the edge of the platform, no one there to greet her, before Buck throws her arm around Stephanie's shoulders and pulls her in with the rest of them.

That's what feels like home. Not Brooklyn, not the Heights and the neighborhood streets she's known since she was a girl. Not the Barnes's apartment. No, home is Bucky's arm, heavy and warm, slung over her shoulders, her hips bumping Stephanie's when she walks.

Bucky's ma has prepared a feast for them, and her sisters can't stop talking about how they spent all day cooking just to get everything ready for the new graduates.

Rebecca keeps talking about the neighbors (and their cute son and their mysterious background) while Ida peppers the two of them with a million questions about nursing school and Esther resolutely plods along through a book in the corner of the sitting room all evening. Ruth spends an hour pouting before Bucky asks her what's wrong, and although Mrs. Barnes bemoans the tribulations of having a daughter who prefer dancing to staying home with her Mama, Bucky laughs and insists that the teenager be allowed to go out. "Have a good time, for us old maids who are shut up at home," Bucky teases, and although neither of them ask to join her, both Rebecca and Ida throw longing glances at the door after Ruth's departure. Esther remains enraptured by her book.

It's so nice, so nice, and comfortable and homey that Stephanie barely has time to miss her own Ma, and whenever the melancholic edge begins to creep into her thoughts or words, Bucky is there, as she always is, always has been, always will be, to pull Stephanie away, remind her that the world's still here, even when it doesn't feel like it is.

It's later that evening, with her and Bucky wedged into the couch, while Esther interrogates her about what they think of Dickinson's poetry, and if they've entirely given up literature now that they've gone into nursing, that Bucky throws her arm around Stephanie and recites, " _I'm Nobody! Who are you?/Are you Nobody too?/There's a pair of us!/Don't tell! They'd advertise you know,_ " when it occurs to Stephanie that she might never be this happy again.

They're going to apply for the nursing corps tomorrow.

 **…**

It's three days into their stake-out that they get confirmation that Zola will be riding through the icy pass in the Alps where they've been camped.

Jane's the one running the radio when they get the news, and it only takes that to sober them up. Just moments ago, Monty and Gabby were in the midst of a heated card game, and Dum Dum was teaching Jacqueline the words to a vile song ("I got nipples on my titties, big as the end of my thumb/I got somethin' between my legs'll make a dead man come,") while Bucky waved her hands, conducting from her perch on a pine branch above. Stephanie had been pacing around the edge of the camp, in theory thinking about their strategy for the coming weeks, in practice trying to get away from the smell.

It had been nearly a week since they'd bathed, and the sweat and stench from their four-day trek up the mountainside had only been exacerbated by another three days sitting and waiting for word on Zola's whereabouts. Normally they'd have found a stream or a lake to rinse themselves in, but as it was winter, and they were up the side of the Alps, as Bucky had put it, "It's colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra. The only way you're getting me out of my coat is if you kill me for it." After that, they'd mostly resigned themselves to it, reasoning that a bad smell was better than frostbite.

But when Jane shushes them, it all falls away. No matter how irreverent they could be during down time, the Howling Commandos are nothing if not determined when it comes to their missions, from simple sabotage to full on assaults. They'd secured the zip line that led to the tracks days ago, and Stephanie and Bucky both move towards it, while Gabby grabs at the radio to listen in on what Jane's hearing.

Bucky looks over the cliff's edge, then back at Stephanie. "Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?" The memory comes, flooding her senses. Lights and music from the rides and stands, cotton candy, sweet going down, not so sweet coming back up.

"Yeah, and I threw up?"

Bucky nods. "This isn't revenge, is it?"

Stephanie smiles. "Why would you think that?"

It happens so quickly after that. They're joking about their trip to Coney Island. Then Bucky's following her down the zip-line, through the mountains and onto the train, another mission, a mission like any other. And then, as they creep down the walkway, a door clicks shut.

The fight is quick and brutal. A moment of respite, halfway through, and Bucky grins at Stephanie through a curtain of hair. "I had him on the ropes."

"I know."

The rest happens in snapshots.

Their fallen enemy coming back up, firing his HYDRA-issued blaster, shooting a hole in the side of the train.

Bucky, holding up the shield she'd helped Stark design, the vibranium resonating as bullets clanged against it until she's knocked back.

Bucky, dangling by the shaky, unmoored railing that is rapidly giving way, her face a mask of sheer terror.

Bucky, stretching her hand out to grab onto the rail, onto Stephanie, onto _something_ , missing, and Stephanie climbs towards her, knowing that if she can just _get to her_ —

The railing gives.

There's a rushing in Stephanie's ears, a low whooshing sound, as Bucky screams and falls, her hands still reaching, still grasping, as if she could still grab on and be saved, and all she can hear, inexplicably, is the announcer at the Dodger's game.

 _Going, going, going…_

Gone.

 **…**

Twelve years old, and three weeks into their friendship, Bucky tells Stephanie she's going to teach her how to dance. They're in Stephanie's apartment while her ma's at work, and Bucky makes quick work of pushing all the furniture to the edges of the room, clearing a big space. They've left their shoes by the door, so as to not mark up the wooden floors, and in just their socks, Bucky walks Stephanie through the steps of the foxtrot, the waltz, and the jitterbug, counting off the beats, before she starts humming the tune. She leads, and it's hard work for Stephanie to keep up. She keeps tripping over her own feet, but Bucky's always there, and always steadies her.

She says that next time, they should practice at her apartment. "My Mama has swing records, we can dance to real music."

"How'd you get so good at leading?" Stephanie asks, as she stumbles again.

"After I learned, I had to teach Rebecca. Mostly cause she wouldn't leave me alone if I didn't."

Stephanie nods. She's never had much experience with little siblings, but the past few weeks have taught her that Rebecca Barnes, at least, is nothing if not tenacious. She's sure Ida and Ruth will be the same way, and maybe even baby Esther, but for her it's too soon to tell.

"One day, when I'm grown up, I'm gonna go out dancing every night," Bucky confides.

Stephanie smiles politely, but it's too soon to tell her new friend that the doctors say she probably won't make it past fifteen, so imagining life as a grown up has never been something she's wanted to do.

"Let's try the lindy hop again," Bucky decides, not waiting for a response. She begins to sing in time with their steps, and Stephanie feels a stab of jealousy. Bucky's already pretty and healthy and smart and popular and can dance. It's not fair that she has a nice singing voice too.

Stephanie lets her thoughts about what it would be like to be Bucky Barnes distract her, and soon she's tripping again, but this time, Bucky loses her balance as well; her socked feet slipping against the hardwood floor.

She lets out a noise, a cross between a yell and a laugh, but doesn't manage to let go of Stephanie's waist or hand. Instead, Bucky pulls her down with her.

 **…**

A month after the train, with her heart already in freefall, Stephanie stares down at the control panel for the Valkyrie.

She lets Bucky pull her down with her.

 **…**

 **…**

 **…**

 **…**

 **…**

 **…**

 **…**

It's cold, when she wakes up.


End file.
